Jellis Avenue, Hawkstowe Estate

 

These garded beds were screwed together with heavy duty bugle screws rather than nailed. And 12 bugle screws per corner were used. This might seem like over engineering, but it means those garden beds can be cart wheeled around (turned end over end). They will hold together for at least 10 years.

If I had taken the lazy way out and just naled them together then you could certainly not cart wheel them without seriously weakening them. And they would fall apart within a few years. You see this all the time with paling fences where the nails holding the plinth boards and rails loosen quite quickly. And plinth boards and rails come loose as the timber warps and slits. It would happen with screws too eventually as well but it takes much longer.

In theory the client could easily take these garden beds with him to a new house. They could be emptied of soil and the garden beds cart wheeled into a truck or trailer. They are damn heavy but it is possible.

There are two screws per sleeper this side, locking each sleeper to the vertical support. The sleepers cannot twist at this point.

At the back there are 4 screws holding each sleeper to edge of the vertical support. Two into the end of the perpendicular sleeper and 2 into the edge of the vertical support. This means the sleepers cannot twist at this point either. In the case of the front sleeper, in this photo, I omitted 4 of the screws in order to make it easy for the client to remove it in order to make tipping a wheel barrow of soil into garden bed easier.

It takes more time and effort to contruct sleeper garden beds this way, but it also means they will last a lot longer and they can be moved easily if needed.

Our Lady's Christian College, Kingsbury

   

Sleeper Garden Bed, Maribyrnong

Shaftsbury Drive, Epping

Kirkwood Avenue, Epping

Monash Street, Ascot Vale

Palperra Terrace, Greensborough

Manor House Drive, Epping

Frog Pond, St Peter's Primary School, Epping

Ansinthe Close, Epping

Elder Street, Greensborough

Camoflauge Drive, Epping

Grandstandway, Wollert

Ardenal Crescent, Lalor

Ansinthe Close, Epping

Huntington Terrace, Epping

Woorawa Drive, Doreen

Mixed 'Griffin' Microlaena stipoides & 'Oxley' Austrodanthonia geniculata native grass lawn.
Six 6 months after sowing - establishing well.
Native grass lawns cannot be laid as instant turf because the root systems are too deep to withstand being 'shaved'.
And they take longer to establish than regular seed sown lawns.
But they are far more resilient in water logged clay and hot dry australian summers.

Correa Court, South Morang

Tesselaar Road, Epping

Tesselaar Road, Epping

Alpha Medical Clinic, Mill Park

Ferntree Close, Epping

Everard Road, Mernda